Ecards as a Marketing Tool
By Vladimir Kolarov
http://www.etoon.com
As any successful businessman will confirm, having a great product or service
is just the beginning. After all, in this day and age, everything comes down to
marketing. The more creative you are in your marketing efforts, the more
successful your business is. There are many ways to promote your business
without spending a fortune. In this article I will describe one of the most
powerful tools on the Internet – ecards!
Ecards (electronic greeting cards) are a great example of efficient marketing on
the internet. You have a service open to the Internet users. The ecards they
send from your site invariably contain promotion for your company, products or
services. They are advertising tools that are immediate, inexpensive,
personalized and although sent via email, S.P.A.M.-free.
This form of Internet marketing is extremely effective. More than 50% of the
U.S. population and 85% of all Internet users visit a greeting's site annually,
according to research firm Jupiter MediaMetrix. Why not use even a small
percentage of these potential clients to you advantage? OK,
BlueMountain.com has more than 100 million unique visitors each year, but
even with less numbers, the potential is there. Remember, with each sent ecard
from your site you have at least two potential clients!
If someone utilizes the ecards service on average only twice a day, in the
period of a year the service is advertised approximately 730 times. Multiply
this number by the number of registered users and you get yourself a healthy
advertising stream. Recognizing the huge potential, in 1999 Excite@Home Corp.
paid $780 million for the purchase of
BlueMountain.com. How much would you pay for that type of advertising?
No need to answer -- you can have an ecard site for a lot less. The concept is
the same, and you can use it just as the big boys. You can build a database of
qualified prospects and use ecards to:
- Promote - promote products and services
- Brand - create company awareness among your client base
- Invite - invite people to seminars and events
- Remind - send appointment reminders
- Inform - send Client appreciation memos, Recruiting/hiring notices,
etc.
- Reference - send Birthday wishes, Holiday greetings, Thank You's, etc.
OK, so now you know you need an ecard section on your site. What do you need
next?
Content:
Custom content: If you have a larger budget you can have an well-known
artist create custom animated ecards for you. On average, a Flash animated ecard
costs $350. Leased content: A much cheaper way to obtain high quality content is
to use the services of a company like Cardsup Greetings (http://www.cardsup.com).
Their ecards have been used by such sites as Yahoo Greetings,
Regards.com,
ecards.com,
etc. For a very reasonable price you will get:
GREAT CONTENT for your existing web site, made by some of the best
animators/cartoonists in the business.
TIMELY UPDATES -- you will receive monthly Flash ecards! Each month you
will get from 5 to 30 additional ecards at no cost.
SCREENSAVERS -- you will receive all additional animations as
screensavers too, and you will be able to sell them to your customers.
Ecards software:
There are a lot of very good ecard programs on the Internet. I highly recommend
the following:
- MyPostCards Platinum (http://mypostcards.com/platinum/)
- ECardsPro price U$299 (http://www.ecardspro.com/)
- Greeting Card PRO price U$249 (http://www.greetingcardpro.com/)
- Greeting Cards Pro price U$249 (http://www.all-yours.net/software/)
Web Hosting:
If you do not have a web host for your site, be sure to check out
Fullservehost.com (http://www.fullservehost.com).
They have plans for ecard sites owners that come with card software.
